Two New Sonic Games Are Coming in 2017, and Both Look Really Promising

This year might be Sonic the Hedgehog’s 25th birthday, but Sega just announced two new games due for release in 2017 at the San Diego Comic Con.

First up is Sonic Mania, a new 2D platformer heavily inspired by Sonic CD made in collaboration with Christian Whitehead (developer of the Sonic CD port), Headcannon (who developed the Sonic 1 and 2 mobile ports with Christian Whitehead) and PagodaWest Games (a mobile dev).

It looks a hell of a lot like what Sonic 4 should’ve been. With a load of new stages alongside some reworked classic ones and new mechanics like the ‘drop-dash’, this is probably the biggest hope for classic Sonic fans since Sonic 4 was still known as “Project Needlemouse”. It’s coming in Spring 2017 for PS4, PC and Xbox One.

The second one is currently only known as Project Sonic 2017. We don’t know a lot about how it plays or what exactly it is, but the CG teaser trailer shown suggests that this might well be Sonic Generations 2, or, at least, a spiritual successor to it.

Project Sonic 2017 will be launching during the 2017 holidays for PC, PS4, Xbox One and, interestingly, the NX. Over the next year and a half we’ll be given more crucial info. Like the name, hopefully…

While all of it is a year too late, as a life-long Sonic fan I’m really excited by both of these games. Sonic Mania looks a lot like the Sonic 4 people were hoping for: inspired by the original games and their physics while giving us new environments to use them in.

Project 2017 also looks really interesting. Sega has a habit of ignoring the more modern games to build on nostalgia for the Mega Drive era instead, while there’s still a lot of love for games like Generations, Colours and Unleashed out there. If this is a return to the Unleashed/Generations modern-stages format, I’ll be chuffed to bits.

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With a most of the recent Sonic games appearing on Nintendo platforms, I was surprised to notice the lack of a Wii U or NX icon for Sonic Mania. Definitely looks promising though, and here’s hoping Sega finally gives fans the Sonic they want/deserve.

Sega and Nintendo had a deal for the last 3 Sonic games to be on Nintendo platforms. Lost World, Sonic & Mario at Sochi 2014 and Sonic Boom were those 3 games IIRC, so that deal’s finished now. It makes sense for them to focus on the platforms that have been pretty lacking in Sonic.

“Join the resistance”? – Some hints of the old Archie Comics in there, too, with that tag line, but I doubt we’ll actually get any of that in the game aside vague similarities if anything – I think the last time that universe was acknowledged in the games was the cameo appearances of some characters from it in one of the Sonic Spinball bonus stages.

Sonic Mania looks fantastic; Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley are both long-term Sonic fans, and did incredible work for Sega with the classic Sonic ports, doing more than just autoloading a ROM inside an emulator package like many classic releases do (and charging some pretty high prices for the privilege – I’m looking at you, Nintendo), and instead Whitehead developed his own “Retro Engine”, which natively produces older generation 2D effects on new hardware, rather than being restricted to emulated hardware. Thomley has also developed his own Headcannon Game Engine in a similar vein.

Sega honestly couldn’t have anyone better working on a classic style Sonic game – these guys know their Sonic inside and out, and they have a far better measure of the Sonic fan community and its unusually high standards and loud opinions. It’s long overdue that Sega gave them a chance at the reigns of developing a new Sonic game.

But it’s also worth considering that even indie developer 2D games have advanced since the 16-bit days, and it’s going to need to stand up well against them to succeed, especially in terms of game length – I think that if they keep the number of levels to at least that of Sonic 3 & Knuckles combined – and as a completely personal preference, go for Sonic 2’s style of physics and gameplay. That was a game that just felt *great* to play – then they’ll have an absolute winner.

As for “Project Sonic 2017″… Well, the trailer didn’t inspire much with its quite frankly Terminator Badnik vibe, compared to the more lighthearted theme of recent Sonic games. If that’s what they’re going for, I just can’t muster the same level of hope for it as I have for Mania – unless “Join The Resistance” means we’re going to get some kind of weird SaTAM game – unlikely, given it’s been 20 years since it originally aired.

But on the plus side it’s being covered by the same team who made Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, two of the best Sonic games in recent years. If they can aim for Sonic Colors level of lighthearted writing, voicework and story, and for Generations’ 2D/3D mixed gameplay, I’d be pretty happy.

That all said, the trailer really didn’t divulge much, which suggests that there’s nothing else worth showing yet: I’ll be reserving my judgement on Sonic 2017 until we see more.

If it fails to impress, and Sonic Mania succeeds… well, it would be interesting to see what Sega’s reaction is if a smaller, cheaper 2D project by two guys and an indie studio beats the snot out of their triple-A 3D game.

Psyched.
Was annoyed Christian Whitehead never seemed to be given Sonic 3/Knuckles to work with but this is so much better! Will definitely be getting Sonic Mania (despite the ridiculous name).
A new Sonic game by the makers of Colours/Generations (aka the BEST ONES!) wow. Wonder what stupid name it will have though… Generations 2 is to easy, it’s likely to be Sonic Splooge.